The Definition of Humanity
by The Readers Muse
Summary: "He didn't understand the emotion behind the action, so he bit it back, gnawing on his lower lip beneath the protection of his face until he tasted smelted copper. It was safer that way." R/D slash.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the Watchmen or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Warnings:** This is a story that connects to the movie-verse version Watchmen. It is meant to mesh into the time frame of this fandom somewhere _before_ the Keene Act came into law (Cannon 1977). All that I am aware of canon-wise is the events of the movie, thus this fiction revolves around my own interpretations of the movie (not the graphic novel). This is a Rorschach fic, with Nite Owl II/Rorschach slash. Light slash, adult situations, adult language. Not your cup of tea? I suggest you pass it by. Still with me? Fabulous!

**Authors Note #1:** Please read and review. I am open to comments, advice, and constructive criticism. This is my first Watchmen story so I am especially looking for constructive feedback.

_**The Definition of Humanity**_

He had seen a poster once during a midnight investigation into a suspicious clinic on 32nd and Baron. It had been a high glossed picture, shined richly with an elaborate finish and an expensive, baroque style frame that claimed to hold the definition of the term '_humanity_.'

But in reality, when one looked beyond all the nonessential trivialities and sickeningly colourful filler, it was merely a list taken from the Oxford & Collings English Dictionary Edition that sought to define the term. The artist had simply moulded the definition into a symmetrical mess of artistically crafted word clouds, superimposed over the original art of the piece.

It read: "**Humanity** /hju:'maeniti/ _noun_ (_plural_ -**ies**)** * **The human race, human beings collectively. *** **The quality of being human. *** **Kindness or mercy. *** **Humaneness, kindliness, kind-heartedness, consideration, charitableness, open heartedness, warm-heartedness, good will, benevolence, compassion, mercifulness, mercy, benignity, tenderness, warmth, beneficence, tact, tactfulness, generosity, unselfishness, magnanimity, understanding, sympathy, sensitivity."

He had paused to stare, mouth working incredulously as his stomach rolled, mind abound with mocking cynicism that only got louder the longer he read. They were empty words, false truths and lies. It was simply an artistically deferent piece put up to toe the party line, to create false assumptions and present a veneer of trust and respectability towards the unsuspecting public.

_And like cattle being brushed and fed the day before they were led to the slaughter, the public remained complacent and oblivious, content in their self made ignorance. _

_But not him_. He had given up on that definition of humanity a long time ago. _If he had ever truly believed it at all.._ Because he knew the truth. He knew what lay beyond it, hiding just below the surface of those empty, faceless words. The fetid, maggot infested flesh of moral decay and social corruption.

The only truth to be found admist the boundaries of that sickeningly gilded frame was the faded, phantom-like image of his own face reflecting back at him through the shining glass pane. The ink blots shifting, turning frenetic and violent as the smiling, over painted whore with the plastic smile stared coyly from just below the blurb of words, her arms tight around the shoulders of a smiling boy that sported the same pale complexion and rich blond hair. While in the background, the suit wearing patriarch looked on, complacent adoration plastered clear across his flawless face as he looked down at them. His persona alluding to the usual facets that have come to define the modern day trope of masculinity, that of power, wealth, stability and unending promise.

_Lies. Deceits. All of it. He knew that truth better then most._

Life had taught him that people were either inherently sinful or inherently ignorant. There was little middle ground. No second chances or shades of grey. It was simply how the world worked. _And how people were.. _So perhaps that in itself was part of the reason why that from the very start, he didn't know quite what to make of Nite Owl.

He had heard there was a new Watchman on the streets. A man who had taken up the mantle of the original and had already managed to make quite a name for himself, both in the professional and criminal circuits. And from the beginning he realized that this man was not like others, with their fancy costumes, capers and lofty ideals. _For once it seemed as though this was someone truly worthy of the title._

It had taken him far longer to track the man then he was used to and he soon figured out why. When a few weeks into the hunt he came upon the man himself, fighting his way _alone_ through a particularly large mob of Top Knots, trying to reach the shining, metal plated ship that was hovering quietly at the opposing end of the narrow, urban corridor. _No wonder.._

From his vantage point it was clear that this had been a trap. With the thugs having likely lured the man into an alleyway somewhere close by, and then besieged him from all sides. _Dishonest and ignoble. As if there had ever been any doubt of that._ Internally, even then he had been impressed. A lesser player would have been nothing more then a severely beaten gutter stain by now. _Leaking their life's blood out into the already overflowing, and unsympathetic city gutters. _But instead, despite being alone and severely outnumbered the man was somehow still holding his own.

He had been intrigued despite himself. Keen eyes taking in the way the man dealt out a running kick, his strong arms wrapping around a light pole as the movement took down two Top Knots at the same time. The pair going down with a sodden smack as rain slicked leather jackets met abruptly with the unforgiving pavement. The man's hits were solid, if not slightly inexperienced. Speaking more of soft heartedness then the vicious retribution that his own particular brand of punishment generally exemplified.

Normally he would have viewed that as a weakness, something that could be exploited or hinder one in the pursuit of justice. But it was strangely fascinating to see the contrast even as the cloaked man took down the closest perpetrator with a forceful snap of his wrist, sending the thug cart wheeling overtop an overflowing dumpster with barely a pause. _As this time, in the place of naivety and weakness he saw potential. Raw, untouched potential._

He remembered the smell the most keenly; the sensation of the moment. The night was ripe with treachery and fear, the scent rising like the stink of the city muck and rotting filth that lined virtually every back alley of their cities disillusioned streets. He cocked his head as took it all in, the wind rippling along the surface of his overcoat, teasing the strands of his ivory scarf in much the same way as it curled along the edges of the man's cape as he fought below. His movements causing the thick material to surge and quiver like the outstretched wing of a bird. This he understood. _The night was connecting them._ Though not just through their chosen profession or affluent designs, but through this moment, and this moment alone. And when he was faced with the starkness of that truth, there was only one other concept that was abundantly clear. And that was the fact that as good as this fighter was, the man wasn't invincible. He was tiring, out numbered, and already bleeding through his Kevlar from where at least one blow had landed home. _He wouldn't last much longer._

In retrospect, he realized sometime later that he hadn't even thought twice about it when he had dropped down from the closest fire escape. From one moment to the next his awareness had simply shifted from the thin, rooftop gravel at his feet, to the sound of his worn boot soles as they slammed down along the edges of a muck encrusted pothole right in the middle of the fray. And with barely a pause, barely even a _ripple,_ he caught the man's eye. Gazing directly at the cloaked man through the inscrutable fabric of his face before whirling away, adding his own fists to the contest. They had fought back to back until the only thing he could hear echoing through the abandoned alleyway around them was the splintering crack of bones breaking, the cries of their attackers, and the exhausted, but newly invigorated breathing of the man fighting beside him.

_..That had been the first time he had ever fought together with another…Retrospectively, it probably should have unnerved him more then it had at the time._

But even that wasn't enough to explain the fact that he didn't know why in those first few weeks, that he found himself waiting until the man left home to slip through a carelessly unlocked window. Ghosting silently through the man's empty home, where each floor was all but alive with the man's enthusiastic and enigmatic presence as he pawed through the man's unopened mail.

_It had been there that he discovered that the man's name was Daniel.._

Daniel was a strong name, _pure._ It was a name that spoke of moral character and, authoritarian justice. _Righteous strength tempered with the hewn softness of easy affection and innate kindness._ In Hebrew, the name is most often translated into meaning _'judge', _a name that was indeed quite fitting when one took in the unique nature of their line of work. Deep in his gut he knew it wasn't a coincidence. Such foolishness only held bearing on the weak-willed and feeble minded. But fate, perhaps, was another matter entirely.

However, that by itself did not excuse the fact that he could detect no lies, deceits, nor even anything _remotely_ nefarious lurking underneath Daniel's ready, open smile. Something in itself he came to realize that man gifted over far too easily. _Undeservingly. _It was as if the man didn't fear the hurt..the vulnerability, and the ever widening chasm of confusion and regret that inevitably follows in its wake. _Though perhaps most of all, he didn't understand that ease, that indomitable good nature that Daniel seemed to produce in spades.._

His discomfort with this unforeseen circumstance had only grown in the days since that first meeting, especially after his weeks of furtive, careful investigation brought forth absolutely nothing. No vices, or questionable past, no criminal history, or false intentions. _He didn't understand it._ This.._Daniel_..didn't fit with what he knew was true about the inherent nature of mankind. _Of people. _From the unwashed, wilfully ignorant masses right down to the weak, unsuspecting individual.

_He must have missed something..But deep down, he knew he hadn't.._

And soon, despite his intentions, chance meetings on the sin strewn back alleys became more frequent, deliberate. He wasn't sure which of them was to blame. And before he realized it, like a worm to an apple, wriggling from the surface to the very core, it had become almost habitual.._routine_. Like an addiction.

.._A vice.._

He came head on with that reality the night he slipped up through the tunnels and into the Brownstone, intending to inform Daniel of a new lead down at the city docks. Information he had gleaned in regards to the case they were both currently working, only to find a dark and empty house, with no hint or reasoning for the man's absence. Incensed in a way he couldn't entirely explain he set out alone, and on foot, his worn boot soles making unneeded noise as he stalked down the murky backstreets, as if even his footsteps were dead set on putting a voice to his confused displeasure. Somewhat predictably, his growing unease, frustration, and unexplainable irritation effected both his concentration and his performance that night. Shaking him soundly from the cool, collected persona he had adopted for the first time since the darkness and the dogs, and he ended up limping away from the last fight with a gash on his left leg that needed ten stitches, and a badly dislocated shoulder.

_It was a lesson he wasn't soon to forget._

And for a long time afterwards, every night he would open his mouth, intending to end it. And every night Nite Owl would push back his cowl, skin vibrant and flushed with victory once they were in the safety of the Owl Ship, and predictably the words would curl up and die before they could reach his lips. Slicking back down his throat in a reeking, matted clot of confusion, indecision, and barely understood frustration.

_He didn't understand it._

The first time Nite Owl called him 'partner' he had fled, ghosting out of the Brownstone and into the obscurity of the city streets as if he had never been there at all. _It wasn't hard to imagine..He didn't belong in Daniel's home, and he knew it. _He had disappeared for over three weeks, ignoring the barely formed whispers of worry that followed. Meaningless platitudes had flowed like toxin laden waters, streaming through the Watchmen community only a few days into his absence, hastened no doubt by Daniel's incessant inclination towards worrying.

_Childish gossip. No one really cared._

But like a moth drawn willingly to the flame, he realized that he couldn't stay away. _Not anymore. _And he had cursed himself vehemently even as he had taken his frustrations on Daniel's front lock the night he returned. _Deadlock and all._ That had been the first time he had broken into Daniel's house that way, pointedly ignoring the cracked living room window that stood only a few meters right. And he suspected, even at the time, that it wouldn't be the last.

_Daniel seemed to have that affect on him.._

But it had been there that Daniel had surprised him yet again, because instead of the anger and righteous indignation that the action deserved, the man had only looked relieved and undeniably pleased when he had discovered him sulking in the unlit shadows of his kitchen. His mask partially rolled up to reveal the stark angles of his chin and the hard slash of his thin, split lips as he crunched on pilfered sugar cubes. Feigning ignorance and cool headedness in the face of the insurmountable weight of his own failings.

_..His own profligacy.._

Because the only thing he had learned in those three weeks he had spent away, purposely loosing himself admist the vast urban metropolis he had sworn to protect, neck deep in villainy, corruption, and perversion, was that he couldn't stay away. _Not from Daniel. _He wasn't sure what about that was worse. The fact that somewhere along the line he had fallen, or that in the end, even if he could crawl out of this self made pit of aberration and sin, he was suddenly unsure if he actually _wanted _too.

_He was wrong inside. Wicked, debauched, weak…cursed. _And worse still, his failings had not yet come to an end..

Because even then he had been too caught up in his own censure, viciously berating himself for his inability to break free from the predilection he had been struck with since the first moment he had met eyes with the man, the flash of goggles under the blinding glare of the flickering urban lights as his boots met pavement, to realize that Daniel had stopped dead at the door to the kitchen, fingers falling nerveless from the light switch as he openly stared. And like a double take, he watched as warmth flooded across the man's face, spreading from neck to cheek like a blush, as his face took on an expression that looked akin to a child who had just received a most precious gift.

He didn't understand why until he lifted a hand to wipe his mouth, crooked fingers dusting errant granules of sugar from his lips when his unsuspecting fingers met rough stubble. It took all his will power not to finch and turn a shade that would have rivalled the flaming neon of his hair. It had been the first time he had ever revealed a part of himself in the man's presence. In anyone's presence. _It had been_ _foolish. Needless..thoughtless and utterly excruciating..._

_He wondered if that was what trust felt like…_

It hadn't taken long to get used to the way that Daniel felt the incessant need to make meaningless, idle chatter on patrol. And as the night worn on, it was almost always the same. It would start with those easy smiles, even the occasional grin, all mixed together with flashes of straight white teeth and plush, pink lips. And then, soon afterwards the words would begin… _in abundance._.

_He had never met anyone quite like Daniel. _

The subject never seemed to matter, with the topics ranging from the previous nights success, incoherent babble on the Owl ship's systems, or even his latest research paper on the Ornithological lecture circuit. And by proxy he learned things that he privately thought he had no practical business ever knowing. For instance, after what he gathered had been a particularly frustrating guest lecture at the local university, he had been privy to a seemingly endless rant about the correlation between the dull, off white color of Owl plumage, and it's benefits regarding to a sort of natural, genetically constructed camouflage. Especially useful, according to Daniel, when the predator was roosting.

It took awhile but he eventually began to understand and even appreciate his partner's fascination with the winged hunters. They were natural born predators. Silent, swift, and sure. Only doing what came natural, never questioning, never doubting. _Perfect._ The correlation certainly didn't escape him…

But it was on the nights where the man grew abruptly silent, refusing to indulge his pointed questions or near silent shifts in the co-pilot seat, that he realized that somewhere along the line he had come to despise the silence. Because with Daniel it always meant bad things. _Daniel wasn't meant to be silent. _

Nearly half a year into their unconventional partnership, confusion and self loathing had been prominent after the events that had followed a long night tracking down a missing child. She had been abandoned in the industrial section of the city by her drug addicted babysitter. The young woman too high on crack and god only knows what else to realize that dragging a sleepy, curly headed toddler to a rendezvous with her dealer was a bad call. And predictably, while she was busy getting her fix; the tot had wandered away, lost in the maze of rickety wharf side boardwalks and dingy back alleys.

It was pouring rain and close to two in the morning by the time they finally found her, having somehow wriggled her way halfway down an exposed sewer pipe that was partially protected from the elements. _Smart girl. _Once they had coaxed the babe out, Daniel had wrapped her in his cloak, saying nothing of the fierce bite of the wind, nor the stinging rain until they had seen her safely back into the arms of her sobbing parents. But unlike the child who had come out remarkably unscathed from her lengthy ordeal, somewhere during their night of searching through the damp causeways and partially submerging moorings, Daniel had caught a cold. _A particular nasty one._

He had been quietly appalled the following night after patrol when he had followed the man upstairs, swayed for once by the offer of coffee and heated up leftovers, when he watched as the man flipped on the coffee maker before opening the cupboard above the sink and taking down a bottle of cough syrup.

He had felt his spine stiffen, feeling each vertebra tense in quick succession as he stared down at that small, innoxious looking bottle. Cloying thickness rose in his throat as Daniel coughed, the sound muffled underneath the thickness of his gauntlet as the man chattered on about the nights events. But he heard none of it. His eyes stuck on the bottle Daniel still held in his palm, unconsciously threading the cap through his thick fingers as he perused the instruction label.

Distrust rose like bile in the back of his throat as he watched._ 'Corporate profiteering. Possibly laced with addictive properties._' His mind had supplied. It had been a theory he had been working on for quite some time. After all, corporations were only out for one of two things._ Money and profit. Certainly not customer safety or satisfaction._

He waited until the man had retreated to the bathroom to change, deep hacking coughs racking his broad frame as he went, before he unobtrusively poured the whole bottle down the kitchen sink. Pointedly running the tap as the fragrant, chemically rich scent rose harshly in his senses. _He fancied that even the smells alone stood out, like a prelude to a coming danger._

_.._He didn't understand the emotion behind the action, so he bit it back, gnawing on his lower lip beneath the protection of his face until he tasted smelted copper._ It was safer that way.._

Daniel had yelled at him until he started coughing so hard that he had to thump the man on the back in an effort to settle him. It had meant two extra days of patrolling the streets alone, but each night when he had slunk up from the tunnels and into the Brownstone he had been privately appeased to find neither fresh bottles nor even pills. Only strong smelling tea, hot water bottles, and moments of slightly inaudible conversation as the man pressed him for the details of his patrols in between sniffles and bouts of mild fever.

He had thought that was the end of it, that it had been a fluke, or a half formed spectre of his slightly deranged subconscious. But in reality it only got worse from there. And he was forced to meet the issue head on only a few months later.

It happened at a growingly infrequent Watchman meeting; the first one in over three months where every member had seen fit to grace the group with their presence. _Sloppy, disrespectful children. _Ozymandias had only been halfway through his report, detailing the enterprises of the last month of patrolling when he noticed it.

Silke Spectre was glaring sullenly at Doctor Manhattan; pointedly placing herself as far across the room from the glowing blue man as she could possibility get, obviously in the throws of some meaningless lovers quarrel. Indeed, she was practically spitting, her long, flowing dark hair rippling in the bright overhead lights as she bounced impatiently on her heels, eyes flickering across the room towards the Doctor every few moments, as if fully expecting something to happen. Manhattan however, did nothing. Simply blinking those inhuman, glowing blue eyes from across the room, his gaze mournful, yet chillingly empty as Ozymandias finished his report.

_The Comedian had only leered._

He had barely taken notice of the others frivolities until somewhere along the line, he realized that the woman had begun to edge closer to where both Daniel and himself were standing, leaning against the wall side by side in their usual companionable silence. It didn't take her long to get situated. And before he could rightly process the extent of her intentions, she was already pressing indecently close to Nite Owl's side, flipping her long, silk brown hair in Daniel's direction with clear, nefarious intent. Her eyelashes fluttering in false welcome as she fixed him with a coy smile.

_Her intent all by oozing from her sin riddled skin._

Daniel had only smiled his expression understandably benign as he sent her an encouraging look through his goggles. Looking remarkable nonplussed when she twirled a glossy thatch of hair around her index finger in response, clearly unaware of her filthy impulsions as he turned his attention back to Ozymandias at the front of the room.

That was when it happened. _The feelings._ The very moment when something buried deep inside his gut smouldered abruptly back to life. Snarling and spitting like the freshly turned embers of a barely banked blaze. _Heated and powerful. _And in spite of himself, his leather gloves had creaked threateningly, clenching his fists behind his back until his very fingers ached. _She had no right. Daniel was not hers. _

_Adulterous whore._

He had propelled Daniel outside the moment Ozymandias wrapped up the meeting, baring his teeth under his face in vindictive triumph as her tartish face subsided into irritated frowns and a noticeably childish pout. _Slut._

He hadn't been able to hold back his furious growl, almost overcome by a complex, cacophonous mass of a thousand different emotions he neither knew, nor could begin to understand. It was all there, broiling..just under the surface. And even as he kept his hands pressed into the small of the man's back, not letting up until they were only a few scant steps from the roof ladder that would lead them up to where they had secured the Owl ship, he imagined he could actually _feel_ the erosion of his long coveted self control as it dissolved like sugar to water with each age long second his hand remained.

It was like salt being rubbed into an open wound, a paper cut that refused to close, the acidic sting of unforgiving alcohol dosed across a neat line of homemade stitches. _Barely there..and steadily failing._

_..Fraying. Like the mooring line of a life preserver left to drift in the vast, encompassing dark.. Rising over him like the cresting ocean waves, left buoyed and barely afloat admist a manic sea of insurmountable, instinctual fear._

Daniel, of course, had remained entirely oblivious, only blinking back bemusedly from behind the dark sheen of his goggles. Seemingly unperturbed by the over aggressive manhandling as he nudged him towards the ladder with the butt of his shoulder, watching out of the corner of his eye as Silke Spectre huffed in bad temper behind them, tapping her heels for a long beat before whirling around in cloud of streaming hair and that unique, whispering creak of latex on latex before disappearing down the street, swaying towards the underground with a pointed lilt of her hips. He had stewed in silence for the rest of patrol, staunchly ignoring the confused looks that Nite Owl had periodically sent his way, too caught up in his own internal concerns and private moral battles to pay his partner any mind.

He was no more prepared when the first winging cords of the crescendo struck, crashing down to earth like the first lancet of lightening admist Springs first storm. He hadn't anticipated this, neither of them had. He hadn't wanted this._ Not this... _

It wasn't what they were used to, nor what experience had taught them to expect. And in that way it was an inescapably careless mistake, a mistake that he inevitably paid for. Because when it came, ithit hard, so riddled through with that staggeringly unique brand of expeditious brutality that he didn't even have a chance to react.

_There was nothing._ No reasoning or even logic behind it. Just the pain, the shock, and that momentary burst of sudden, bone numbing clarity that always seems to hit the second before the divine epiphany.

_Because he hadn't even seen the gun._

**A/N:** Please let me know what you think, and indeed if I should continue? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the Watchmen or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Warnings:** See original chapter for full warnings/disclaimers. This is a Rorschach fic, with Nite Owl II/Rorschach slash. Light slash, adult situations, adult language. Not your cup of tea? I suggest you pass it by. Still with me? Fabulous!

**Authors Note #1:** Please read and review. I am open to comments, advice, and constructive criticism. This is my first Watchmen story so I am especially looking for constructive feedback.

_**The Definition of Humanity**_

_**Chapter 2**_

…He smelt the malignant tang of expelled power and the obscene stink of seared steel before he felt the pain…

The world regressed, narrowing down to single observations and sensations. But even that was too much. _He blinked slowly, struggling to understand.. _The sidewalk surrounding him was painted in a muted halo of dirty orange and sickly yellow as the low, sparking hum of the flickering street light above them became deafening. _He could hear it. The thrum of electricity, the creak of metal, and screech of slowly scorching glass.. _

Awareness flickered as dark splotches of color bled into his vision. Sensation itself registered slowly, as if even his very senses had become somehow overloaded. The synapses and nerves left decimated in the wake of a single point of steel.

He had never thought much of guns, having always dismissed them as cowardly and dishonourable rather then effective and convenient. They were the weapons of the faint hearted, the insecure, and the inglorious. He believed that if you were committed to the course of killing someone, it should be an act done with the strength of your wits and bare fists. _Like nature had intended. _Not hiding behind a machination wrought of cool steel and human wickedness.

He turned in place, instinctively hunching away from his attacker, and perhaps somewhat ironically, _towards_ his partner who was fighting only a mere ten metres away. He was watching Daniel's face when the pain hit, eyes caught on the way Daniel's mouth had gone wide. Lips pulled back in a graceless snarl as the sluggish thump of his own pulse echoed hollowly in his ears.

..And for a long, puzzling moment, he wondered why Daniel would be yelling..

And then almost like an afterthought, the world simply imploded. _Pain, shock, confusion, searing flesh, Nite Owl. _It was all there, every unconscious thought, every sensation and extreme. It was all there, stuck in a whirling mess of mental flotsam and debris. Jockeying for position like greyhounds salivating at the starting gate_._

_He didn't make a sound. He couldn't. He had forgotten how. _

The percussive, bone grating sound of his knee caps hitting the pavement thrummed up through his nervous system in a vulgar, mind splintering rush that stripped him bare. _It wasn't like anything he had ever experienced before. _It took him down to bone, to nothing but a gaping maw of raw hurt and biting sensation, until the pain was all that he was, all that he could be, all that there would _ever _be..

His vision filmed over in an encompassing bath of static hewn grey, threatening to overtake him completely as he shook his head, desperate to clear it. Momentarily blinded he staggered backward, his back hitting the light pole as his back screamed, hazing liquid fire down his veins as the sound that had been building up in the back of his throat broke loose. The wordless exclamation echoing out in a rolling, half feral sound that spoke of utter misery and a shock loosened tongue.

And he wondered innately, for a long, almost frantic moment, as the sound seemed to grow, offending even his own ears as it bounced back and forth off the crumbling brick and concrete pavement, if Daniel with his ever present goggles, could now see _right_ through him.

The man was all over him in less time then dispatching the three remaining thugs should have rightly taken. _He didn't even hear the sound of their breaths exploding outwards, ripping up from bruised lungs, or the full, meaty sounding thunk of unconscious flesh dropping to the pavement. The twisting threads of reality had already become elusive._

But he did recognize the feel of strong arms curling around his, and the subtle, barely there sensation of lips moving against his neck, his skin suddenly alive with echoes of meaningless base sounds. Because in spite of the pain, he understood the nature of the light press of gauntlet covered fingers as they slid along the worn leather of his palms. Encouraging, but fluttering with an emotion he struggled to define. _Worry? Desperation? Fear? _Did Daniel fear for him? Was that what this strange, barely fathomable emotion was?

_He didn't understand._

Unconsciously he realized that he was counting out the beats between each breath. Already his pulse was far too loud. Splintered with a thick, choking mass of uncleared phlegm, and tinged with the unmistakable tartness of oxygenated blood.

_He couldn't control it._

Daniel was talking again, but he had forgotten how to listen. The intricacies of conversation suddenly lost to him. Instead he chose to concentrate on the pulsating thrum of pain leeching out from the meat just below his left shoulder rather then on the way Daniel was eventually forced to half carry him up the basement steps, steering him, like a boat slowly returning to harbour, along the narrow hallway and up to the master bathroom. _Drifting.._

He hadn't even been able to summon up the energy to protest_, _too caught up the way the mans bare palms were curling around his sides, feeling reldiciously large against his smaller, more compact frame. And he privately marvelled at the way the feeling seared through him despite the layers of the trench coat and suit jacket that stood between him.

And as they stumbled through the bathroom door, Daniel already muttering on about first aid cases and hot water, repeating them like they were religious mantras that deserved reverent repetition, he realized that it probably wasn't a good sign that he felt strangely disconnected from the sluggish trickle of fresh crimson that came burbling out from the wound with each staggering movement they made. Or that it took him far longer to realize that the trickle was coming from out from two separate wounds..

_He knew what that meant. A through and through..Maybe he had been lucky.._

'_Luck'_..It was a strange, disproportional word when one really thought about it. For instance he didn't understand it as well as he did the word 'coincidence'. Because he was certain of the connotations of that particular word, he was sure because he didn't believe in coincidence. Just in the same way as he didn't believe in that of predestination or love. But _luck_..luck was a slippery, elusive term. Was it luck that caused him to stumble upon Daniel that first night? Was it luck that enabled him the honour of spending almost every night since then fighting at his side? Was it luck that from the very beginning, out of virtually every other person in his life, Daniel had accepted him, respected him, and even called him _friend_?

He didn't know. He didn't _understand.._

He swayed in place, lips thinning as the rough edges of Daniel's suit jostled against his injured shoulder. The movement itself nearly toppling them both as the man chose that moment to bend down, retrieving the first aid case from underneath the sink as Daniel tried to balance both their collective weights. He experienced a disconcerting moment of vertigo as they straightened; belatedly registering that somewhere along the line Daniel's hands had moved worrisomely close to his trench coat lapels.

And before he had a chance to remember why it was a bad idea, his coat had already hit the floor with a blood sodden slap. The sound quickly followed by the soft slough of his suit cuffs sliding to the floor, and the sharp metallic click of his tarnished, silver clipped suspenders falling against his pant legs. Even his waist coat was quickly dealt with. The painfully tiny buttons practically wrenched from their stitching as Daniel cursed inventively under his breath.

"Language Nite Owl.." He muttered automatically, legs almost buckling as pain scored across the length of his shoulder once more as Daniel delicately lifted the blood soaked fabric of his dress shirt. And he couldn't help but stare as he watched the plushness of the man's lip yield, caught between Daniel's teeth in anxious concentration as he worked. The man only snorted in response, his breath huffing against the newly mangled skin in a way that should have been painful, but instead only sent shivers of indefinable sensation rippling up his spine.

_It was so very different from that of pain.. For once he truly knew the distinction.. _

The man's movements were slow, and far too gentle. But when he made to do it himself, unable to bear another moment of the man's well meaning gentling, Daniel only pressed his hands away. Doing it once, twice, and then finally a third time before he eventually deferred, exhaustion mounting in spite of his innate stubbornness. _Yielding. _So instead it was Daniel's fingers that curled around the straps of his dirty grey wife beater, lifting them up from his pale, heavily freckled shoulders, the man's thumbs catching against the dips of his shoulder blades as he inspected the wound.

It took him a moment to realize that they were still standing there, swaying unsteadily in middle of Daniel's bathroom, as muck, blood, and other bits of unidentifiable dirt littered the floor in their wake. The shucked layers of their clothes soiled the shining olive and white patterned tiles at their feet, standing out like fallen petals from a withering flower. _Frenetic and unpalatable_. The moment stretched on as they shivered in place, Daniel still continuing to support most of his weight as the man subtly rearranged his hold, moving until their hips slotted together in a way that seemed all but provincial.

_He said nothing._

And he wondered vaguely why he hadn't pulled away yet. Why he hadn't made his own way to the toilet lid and sat down. Or why, in fact that he had allowed any of this to happen in the first place? He had dealt with worse before and he knew it. This, all else considered was a flesh wound. He had dealt with half a broken rib cage and a wound that had needed over twenty-five stitches before. All at the same time..and_ alone. He didn't need this..He didn't need Daniel.._

'_Weak.' _His mind hissed, tone vehement and backed by a wordless snarl. _But it wasn't enough.._

It was Daniel that eventually broke the silence, letting loose a long, pent up breath that still lingered with the remnants of stale coffee and tooth paste as he took a step towards the toilet, palming the large, neon red kit in his free hand as he made to speak.

"Come on buddy. Let's sit down before you fall down." The man remarked softly, his voice going unaccustomedly hushed as he steered him towards the toilet. And after a moment of consideration, where in which he almost shook off the man's hands entirely, he finally acquiesced to the man's well meant man handling. Because it was either that, or risk his weakening composer even further by possibly collapsing halfway there._ He had to admit that neither option was particularly appealing._

The man's actions were uncomfortably rough, yet somehow _still _all too painfully gentle as he lowered him onto the seat, arranging him on the lid so that he faced the half open bathroom door before he finally moved away. Seating himself on the edge of the tub as he began stripping off his gauntlets, his movements quick and efficient as the heavy Kevlar hit the bathroom floor one after the other.

For a long moment he entertained the flighty, half formed notion of simply leaving. Staring out at the small sliver of empty hallway he could see from his vantage point with notable longing. _It wouldn't be that hard, injury or not. Daniel wouldn't go so far as keep him here..would he?_

But he lost the thought only a second later when Daniel settled in behind him, balancing on the tub as he unzipped the kit and began rifling through it. He relaxed incrementally, forcing himself to uncurl his spine, hunching into himself only slightly when he realized how foolish the notion actually was. This wasn't a wayward knife thrust or a half score of broken ribs, something he could patch up himself without Daniel being any wiser. _This was different. _Besides, the man was defiant, and irrepressibly determined this time.

_He couldn't help but wonder if Daniel was picking up some of his own bad habits.. _

The man was so close that he could feel the occasional brush of the mans knees as they rasped against the small of his back, catching gingerly against the waist band of his trousers as Daniel muttered on about sterile gauze, blood pressure, and antibiotics. _He let the words wash over him. _Concentrating instead on the tone..basking in the heady normality of it._ This was Daniel after all. Daniel._

He rolled the mask up just below the bridge of his nose, easing the passage of air to his bruised lungs, calming himself by concentrating on the unforgiving bite of the night air rather then focusing on the presence of the man at his back. Or that of the course of the man's thick fingers as they began tracing around the edges of the wounds. The definition of the man's ridged calluses and smooth, silk-like imperfections of the occasional electrical burn were all too identifiable beneath the thin covering of the wetted down cloth Daniel was now wielding.

He tensed as the man's bare hands returned. Nearly vibrating out of his skin as the full breadth of his sudden venerability fell suffocatingly over him. _Exposed, weak, stripped, wounded, broken, and pathetic. _He felt as though it was all Daniel could see. That he would see him as he was, wrong, bent, perverse.. _He couldn't let Daniel see.. He couldn't-_

"Shh.. I gotcha buddy." The man murmured, his accent deepening as his tone turned easy, calming. Almost as if he were soothing a skittish, half feral animal rather then a man. _A rather apt description in the scheme of things, he figured. _But despite it all he gradually he felt himself give, lulled into a sense of false compliancy as Daniel pulled away, fiddling instead with something just out of sight.

A pained howl built in the back of his throat. But he swallowed it down in favour of letting loose a tormented sounding grunt as an awkward splash of medicinal alcohol scorched across his torn flesh. He tasted fresh copper as he bit right through his lower lip, blood seeping down his chin as the ink blots became frenetic, chasing each other in hazy, barely visible spirals that clouded the fabric underneath his eyes.

_Sneaky Daniel. He hadn't even seen the bottle._

Only in the end, he ruined his stoicism somewhere in between the last tugging stitch and Daniel's unneeded fussing as he selected bandages. Because he slipped up and growled, calling the man by his given name for the first time since he had rifled through the man's mail and discovered it. When he tried and failed to yank himself back from the man's well meant, but overly insistent grip. Unable to help himself as his body reflexively flinched, brain and bone finally snapping under the man's touch as Daniel shifted impossibly closer.

_He wasn't used to this. He had never.._

The silence was palpable. And he couldn't help but watch as Daniel's face changed, staring unabashedly out of the corner of his eye. Waiting for the anger and disgust that experience had taught him would be quick to form. But that only served to confuse him further, because in the end, instead of anger, rage, and righteous indignation, Daniel's face was a vaporous mix of surprise, easy pleasure, and growing frustration at his continued stubbornness.

_In fact he realized that the man didn't even seem surprised that he knew his name…In fact..he looked, pleased. As if this were some sort of milestone that they had reached rather then a gross invasion of personal privacy._

He tried to struggle his way out of the man's grip, regretting the action almost immediately as pain coursed up the line of stitches, tugging painful in that strange, nerve rending way that only comes when fresh stitching rubs against raw flesh. His brain shorting out for a moment and running on the sensation of pure pain alone as a darker, more instinctive parts screamed at him to curl away and lick his wounds in private.

_This didn't feel right.._

But the man was having none of it. And instead he bullied him back into position, sliding them both backwards until he was forcefully perched atop the lid once again, only this time he was turned towards the tub, coming eye to eye with the man for the first time since Daniel had begun stitching. And for reasons beyond him, as he stared back at the man through the thin, barely veiled protection of his face, watching as an errant bead of sweat slowly worked its way down from the mans hair line, his cowl long since pushed back and left abandoned on the tile floor below, he felt the fight leave him.

_..Like helium hissing out from an overfilled balloon…Even then however, he didn't know what that meant..He didn't understand the reason, the cause.._

Their eyes caught awkwardly, and this time he caught himself looking back through the lenses of the man's black, horn rimmed glasses rather then his costume goggles. It was an image that provided a fascinating contrast between Daniel the man, and Nite Owl the city Watchman as the man sat opposite him, still decked out in his Kevlar and high topped boots. It was Daniel that eventually broke it, eyes shuttering momentarily behind the thick reflective glass as he blinked, lashes fanning down to fill the subtle, fitted hollows beneath his eyes before looking back down at his work. A roll of thick, name brand medical tape ringing his index finger as his free hand reached blindly behind him for the scissors.

_The man seemed mercifully content to let his lapse slide. For now.._

In short order the man had taped up the bandages, using the edges of his palms to firmly situate the tape, his movements pointed, but lingering. Almost if the man was trying to tell him something that lied beyond the merger use of words and their commonly vapid, surface meanings..

He almost keened when Daniel's hand fell on his face, cupping the dip of his chin with a single, wide palmed hand. The limb itself a confusing mixture of sculpted, steel covered softness as he went deadly still beneath it, caught in the void somewhere in between panic and numbing uncertainty.

He could feel it, the definition of every muscle, every tendon and nerve as Daniel's palm rasped nakedly across his face, sliding away almost immediately when he reminded motionless. As though its placement had been merely accidental, and not deliberate as he knew the action had been. At the same time he was struck dumb by the absurdity of the moment, stricken by the knowledge that he _should_ have known what to do in that moment. That _anyone_ would have. But not him. He never had..He didn't know..

His thoughts were fleeting, retreating back into phantom impressions, like the whirls and blots that coursed across the expanse of his face as Daniel's voice rose again in the background. Because somewhere along the way, possibly in between being stripped of his waist coat, and the tangy sting of antiseptic being sloshing across his skin, an invisible line had been irrevocable, and very much inexcusably crossed. _He could feel it.._

Because it occurred to him rather rapidly, that these were not platonic touches. That much he understood. _Perhaps they had never really been between them. It was hard to tell.._

Under the protection of his face his color went high. The flush only deepening, as the color leeched up from where the man's hands still lingered, traversing up from the small line of stitches that now adorned the flesh just below his shoulder blade. The man's hand pebbling up along the length of his spine with the loud whisper of heavily calloused finger tips trailing across sweat moistened skin. Their meaning deafening, and utterly unmistakable..

_He didn't understand this. Daniel had finished. Why wasn't he moving? Why wasn't Daniel saying anything? He didn't-_

The man's thumbs brushed needlessly along the fluttering muscles of his sides. Following the jutted points of his ribs all the way up before retracing them back down the small of his back once again, almost as if he were following some sort of strange, obscure pattern that he himself didn't completely understand. His neck lolled almost imperceptivity as air suddenly became scarce, and the gentle clamp of fingers digging into his flesh morphed into a sensation that he had never before experienced.

_Even then he wasn't sure why he allowed it, why he didn't hunch into himself and pull away. …He should go. _

"You _stupid, stubborn_ son of a bitch…" The man murmured, his hands running over the bumps and ridges of long healed scars and still healing wounds. The pads of his fingers sliding awkwardly over the macabre collage of scars, his skin still slick with a thin film of sweat as he listened in silence. Suppressing a shiver as some part of him registered the way that Daniel's voice had turned rough, devolving into a tone that was all hard edges and puckered gravel.

Even then he wasn't sure if the man was referring to the present ones, or towards _all of them._ Because he knew what it looked like. _What he looked like. _His skin was a mottled, wrecked canvas of old scars, half healed wounds, and fresh, dark patterned bruises. _Nothing like Daniel's. _

Only Daniel didn't seem to care, because the man's hands were all over him now. His splayed palms firm, but gentle against his mangled flesh as he investigated every ridge, every dip, freckle and imperfection he had to offer. _It would be a long quest._ The years had not been kind, but then again, neither had he. He worked his body like it was a tool, a mere extension of the mind made available for the higher purpose he set for it. _Nothing more, and nothing less. _

Only now, for the first time in his life, that mantra suddenly fell short. Because now there were fingers ghosting over the tombstones of those long faded scars, ones that finally felt healed, and _whole_ for the first time since they had been dealt. As if all this time they had been somehow left untended and ignored, festering one on top of another until his very skin was consumed by a mass of broken down flesh and weary bone, held together only by stubborn will power and unbending pride.

It felt remarkably as though he had spent his entire life waiting for this very moment, for the touch of the man now all but breathing down his neck, so close that he couldn't help but breathe in the scent as the man's emotions tinted the air. _Close and potent.. Like a savoir or a personal messiah..._

He couldn't help but suppress a shiver as the man's fingers returned. Pressing indelicately at the bruise ridden flesh that spanned the breadth of his right side, hard won trophies from a brutal fight dealt out the night before. He had received two strokes from a nine iron before he was able to drop to his haunches and sweep the perpetrator's legs out from under him. It had been a small time dealer from out of state, now safety locked away and awaiting extradition. _A victory well worth the pain of the moment._

But Daniel had been unexplainably furious on his behalf, looking more affected by the attack then he himself outwardly expressed. Stewing in bad temper and kicking the man's weapon away with a wordless snarl over brimming with condensed distaste and barely contained fury as he had extended an arm to help him up. Their forearms brushing companionably as the man plucked at his mussed up collar, setting it to rights before kneeling down to deal with their suspect.

_At the time he hadn't thought much of it..but now.._

Until now he had viewed those bruises, those dull, throbbing aches and pains as the_ price _of justice_. _Only now he wasn't so sure, because the way that Daniel's calloused fingers thumbed upwards, raking gently through the light, orange-red hairs that trickled down from the base of his neck, it was almost as though those bruises had taken on a whole new meaning.

_Daniel.._

It took him a moment to realize that the man had stopped to take in the stark, neon color of the sparse hairs that arrowed down from his hair line; fingers grazing just overtop them, much like the Owl Ship when it hovers overtop a shadowed city street, unobtrusive, but undeniably present. His flush only deepened as the thought spread, turning warm and molten hot as it hit the empty pit of his belly and traveled downward. He swallowed thickly, his throat spasming dryly in clear protest as he forced the action, almost desperate to ease the sudden dryness there.

"You _damn_ fool." Daniel bit out. Words trickling past his lips in a coming torrent as the man's fingers fisted themselves unconsciously, clenching dangerously close to the bandage that now decorated the wound on his back.

He felt something snap inside as the feeling spread. Splintering, breaking, _ending_. And it felt something like release. Like that moment of utter and complete blistering clarity that comes right before you knowingly take your last breath. _His body burned with it, consumed. Willing lost to it.._

"Despite what you'd like to think you are just as human as the rest of us.." Daniel began again, voice edged with something so close to violence that he was nearly distracted by the unfamiliar feeling of trepidation. "You have no idea what-.." But he cut him off before he could even get started, he couldn't hear anymore.. _He just couldn't._

_He didn't think. He had no idea how to deal with this.. He wasn't- No. He didn't-.._

He whirled in place, nearly reeling right off the closed lid as his move took both Daniel and himself by surprise, causing the man to startled backward, mouth falling open in shock as he nearly slipped right off the edge of the tub. But he didn't let the man go far, because before he could even think the action through, his hands, which had been clenched around the edges of the toilet seat for what felt like hours, had abruptly uncurled. Coming up to dig into the curves of man's shoulders for the first time as his blunt nails sunk deep into the taunt Kevlar, brute force and sheer willpower forcing the material to give. His fingers digging into the meat of the man's shoulders, wrenching him forward into the hollow of his chest, unable to hear another word as he silenced him with his lips.

Everythingstopped everything but the feeling. Everything but Daniel and the sensation of the man pressed roughly against him, fever hot and horribly real under the span of his hands and the roughness of his split lips.

Though perhaps what was more surprising was that Daniel let him. _No.._not only that, but his lips were moving back against his. _Fast, wet, and hungry.._

_No!_

Daniel blinked, as if stunned when he abruptly pulled back; recoiling as though he had been burned. His mind all but _screaming_ as the full connotations of the act hit home. He teetered dangerously on the very edge of the toilet seat as his brain reeled. _Why had he done that? Why?_

He _didn't_..he _wasn't_..except as it turned out, apparently he _was_. Because _this_..this was something he didn't know. Something he wasn't used to. These feelings, the ones thickening in this throat and coursing through his blood even now, running rampant, terrified, angry, and heaven help him, even _hopeful,_ all arrowed down to something he had never had. Something he had told himself he didn't want, and could never have.

_This was wrong. _

No not wrong. Daniel wasn't wrong, not like _him_..not like _that_._ He was sullying Daniel, spreading his sickness…_ But before he could get too far into reclamation, self loathing and that same utter disgust in himself he had felt that first time Daniel had smiled at him, the first time he had grinned and called him 'partner', something rather unexpected happened.

_Because he realized in one, all inclusive rush that Daniel __**wasn't**__ moving away. In fact, he was closing in.._

"I can't _believe_ you. You-You…All this time?" The man began, sounding torn between frustration, lust, anger, and something that sounded suspiciously like fondness as he hooked him by the catch of his ears and towed him in. Ignoring his strangled, scandalized sounds completely as he propelled him forward, not stopping until he rested his flushed forehead against his own, a furnace of barely contained heat beneath the thin fabric of his mask as their lips brushed together once more.

_Tentative, inquisitive, but undeniably heated.._

His mind started stuttering. Distracted by the fiction strewn slide as skin brushed against skin as Daniel drew him in impossibly further, his large fingers curling around the straps of his wife beater, scratching against the curve of his spine, as a heady groan issued from the man's open lips as he dug his fingers into scruff of the man's neck in response. He didn't know this..But now, with his mind left stripped and bare of every defence, every wall and barrier he had ever constructed through his short, but admittedly difficult life, he knew that he very much wanted too.

A moan of aroused understanding jolted through him then. And unbidden, in spite of the provocative, unprecedented nature of the moment, in spite of the sparking drag of skin against skin and the feeling of soft, but growingly confident lips brushing teasingly against his own, his mind cycled back to that moment in the clinic. The moment where his disgust and derision had been practically tangible as he had faced down that picture. The one that had had the gall to proclaim it held the _'true'_ definition of humanity.

_..As if such a term could be so accurately quantified by the likes of the privileged elite and inherently corrupt. By people who had never truly lived, nor seen the world as it really was.._

Because it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps it was not the definition of humanity that was inherently flawed, or indeed even his understanding of it. Perhaps it was simply that he had been looking for its examples all the wrong places.

_Daniel.._

**A/N #1:**I wanted to thank everyone for your comments and reviews. They definitely helped me finish off this story. This story is now complete!

**A/N #2:** Please let me know what you think? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! If you took time to read it, please let me know your thoughts. This is how I go about improving my writing.


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